70 JOURNAL OF THE [July, 



fibrillge. Since contractility is one of the main properties of the 

 living matter, we again must come to the conclusion that the 

 nerve action is altogether due to contraction of living matter. 

 Should the contraction start in the periphery, as, for instance, by 

 a prick with the needle, or a burning match, the contraction is 

 carried centrifugally and results in the sensation of pain. By 

 complex systems of association through the gray substance, the 

 motor centres, which are the largest ganglionic formations, are 

 brought to contraction, which they convey toward the periphery, 

 especially to the muscles, and the result of this centrifugal con- 

 traction is motion, either involuntary or reflex motion, or a motion 

 controlled by the gray matter of the brain, mainly its frontal 

 lobes. 



While I was publishing my works on protoplasm in 1873 in the 

 Vienna Academy of Sciences, where these views were laid down 

 for the first time. Prof. Th. Eimer, in Germany, published his re- 

 searches on jelly-fish of the Mediterranean Sea. He succeeded 

 in fixing the minute tissue relations by means of osmic acid. As 

 you see in his illustrations, he claims that in these animals nerves 

 and muscles are continuous formations to such an extent that 

 the beaded axis fibrilla directly changes into striped muscle. 

 This goes far to prove the correctness of my own view. Both 

 nerve and muscle work upon one and the same principle of con- 

 traction of the living matter. I have demonstrated the con- 

 tinuity of motor nerves with the sarcous elements of the striped 

 muscle fibres ; but the majority of histologists do not as yet ad- 

 mit such a continuity. 



In a previous meeting Mr. Hyatt claimed that plants exhibit a 

 certain amount of intelligence and voluntary movement, though 

 they lack both nerve and muscle. My views will easily explain 

 the phenomena. The protoplasm of the plant has a reticular 

 structure exactly the same as that of animals. The reticulum is 

 the living or contractile matter in plants as well as in animals. 

 A contraction, being induced at some peripheral point of the 

 plant, is conducted by the threads of living matter, piercing all 

 cement substances throughout the whole organism, and the 

 motion, so striking in some plants, will result. No intelligence 

 and no voluntary action are needed to perform what the plants 

 do. What we call voluntary action in animals, especially also in 



